Redmond Pie » Office

Microsoft Office 15 Technical Preview Now Available For Select Group Of People

Paul Morris — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:19:53 +0000

Once upon a time it was all about Microsoft. When you thought about technology companies, mentioned enterprise software or even talked about an operating system, Microsoft was the name that was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. With the recent rise from the ashes of Apple Inc., times have changed a little and suddenly the Redmond company don’t have it all their own way. It is worth noting though, that the company is still producing quality software which mixes innovation with functionality and that doesn’t look like it is about to change anytime soon with the latest announcement from the Office team.

PJ Hough, who is the CVP of Development in the Microsoft Office division has been teasing consumers on the official Office blog, wetting their lips with the announcement of the opening of the Office 15 technical preview program. At this moment you would be forgiven for not having a clue what that is, or why you should care, and to be honest, even the blog post doesn’t really elaborate on the full details. Office 15 is the official codename given by Microsoft to the next generation of the Office Suite of products which we all know to include software packages such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The technical preview corporate term for saying they are officially going to let a group of people view the products and use the software and services as an effective beta trial. The preview scheme will be offered to a select group of customers, although we aren’t sure how those customers have been chosen and will take place under the standard non-disclosure agreements; meaning, those customers are forbidden to release any details of the services being provided. As with any beta run, or pre-release trial, any feedback provided by the testers will be analyzed and hopefully incorporated into the final product.

Hough says a lot in the blog post without actually revealing much, and while he hasn’t provided any exact details about Office 15, he does make reference to the fact that this is the most ambitious undertaking yet for the Office division. He states:

"With Office 15, for the first time ever, we will simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio. Quite simply, Office 15 will help people work, collaborate, and communicate smarter and faster than ever before".

The current preview program is already at capacity, with no additional customers being accepted to trial Office 15, but Microsoft will be opening up Office 15 to a public beta later in the Summer where everyone will be presented with the opportunity to try the products and services.

In April of last year, a screenshot of Office 15 were leaked and gave us a glimpse of what the future Office version would look like cosmetically. You guessed it! Its thoroughly Metro-fied and falls perfectly with Windows 8’s UI. But we’re guessing that the final version of Office 15 would be much more polished.

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OnLive Desktop Brings Windows 7, Office Apps And More To iPad – Download Now

Paul Morris — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:38:44 +0000

If you aren’t familiar with ‘OnLive‘, they are predominantly a company who offer a cloud-based gaming experience where the games are stored on remote servers and delivered to users through an internet connection.

The gaming service provided by OnLive has proved to be extremely popular in recent times due to the diverse compatibility of the service as users can take advantage of the service through a Windows-based PC, a Mac running OS X 10.5.8 or later, or, even iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. The actual gaming content is executed on the remote servers and therefore theoretically allows playback on a relatively low-end machine.

The company was formed in 2009 and launched officially as a subscription service in the US in June 2010, followed by a September release in the United Kingdom last year. So now that the service is officially up and running, delivering content to registered users, what is the next step for the company?

Not content with attempting to bring about a revolution in the gaming industry, the company is attempting to revolutionize the enterprise software world by introducing a cloud based application which brings Microsoft Office packages to relatively low-end devices.

The OnLive Desktop application was announced and demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show and fulfills a promise to bring cloud-based computing to the masses by delivering software such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint directly from the company’s data centers without any need for local storage by users. As it is generally the case with the cloud-based services and applications, a free basic account is being offered, in this instance; giving each user 2GB of cloud-based storage with the option of upgrading to a premium subscription which offers up to 50GB.

The desktop application for iPad is being billed as ‘Windows on iPad’ which I have to admit is enough to make me gasp, but with the service being based upon the company’s instant action cloud gaming technology; the user experience promises to be smooth and trouble free. Some of the more notable benefits being touted about the OnLive Desktop application is; the desktop experience combined with multi touch gestures, handwriting recognition and the ability to view and edit large, complex documents.

If you are interested in using the service, the application is available as a free of charge download, although at the time of writing it wasn’t showing up in the UK App Store for me. OnLive is also offering an option of three service plans, with these being a free of charge option, the pro option starting at $9.99 per month and an enterprise option which provides no additional pricing details.

Download OnLive Desktop for iPad [iTunes link]

Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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Free Cloud Hosted Microsoft Office Functionality Courtesy Of CloudOn App For iPad – Download Now

Paul Morris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:44:22 +0000

The release of the Apple iPad in April 2010 brought about a major change in the way consumers went about their computing business. We started off with personal computers, laptops and netbooks. We even had personal digital assistants which came with a big ugly stylus and made us look like a bit of a snob when using them in public. All of these came with distinct advantages, but none of them quite fulfilled the need of people who wanted to do a bit of everything on the go.

But then along came Apple, after rising from the ashes with the huge success of their iPod and iPhone ranges, as well as rejuvenated Mac sales, they introduced the world to the iPad. A beautifully crafted tablet device which had the power and portability to let users easily undertake any task whilst on the move. Even the original iPad offered the ability to play games, surf the web, perform word processing tasks and everything in between whilst on the move. The inclusion of a dedicated iPad App Store containing thousands of applications purposely built for the device meant that users were rarely stuck for a piece of software to perform any given task.

With the introduction of the CloudOn application for iPad, business based tasks such as word processing, creating spreadsheets and developing presentations has just been made a lot easier. The CloudOn application lets you create, view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly from the device by using the iPad as a bridge between the user and the cloud based office applications. The device will obviously require an internet connection to use the CloudOn app, but this doesn’t detract from a very functional service.

The company behind the application doesn’t seem to be giving much away, with the CloudOn application being very scarce in details other than offering a short tutorial covering the applications functions. To use the CloudOn application you must be a registered user of the Dropbox service as well, as it uses Dropbox as a storage solution. If you do not have an active Dropbox account you can sign up via this link, or alternatively you can do so directly through the CloudOn application.

So just what are you able to do through this new application? Well once the app is download and set up the CloudOn workspace allows you to:

Use Word, Powerpoint and Excel to create, edit and view documents on your iPad.
Rename, edit and delete documents through your Drop Box account.
Track changes while reviewing Word documents.
Use pivot tables and insert forumlas in Excel work books.
Present in full Powerpoint mode.
Open files directly from iPad email accounts or Drop Box.
Automatically save documents, eradicating the possibility of lost data.

The application is presented in a very nice user interface and offers all of the familiar set up that users have come to expect with the Office suite of programs allowing for a seamless settling in period.

Download CloudOn for iPad [iTunes link]

Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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Microsoft Office For iPad Reportedly In The Works

Oliver Haslam — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:45:07 +0000

Microsoft is reportedly working on bringing a version of its hugely successful Office suite to apple’s iPad, according to The Daily. Set to go head to head with Apple’s own iWork suite of productivity apps, Office would bring Microsoft’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint to the tablet that is undoubtedly number one in its field.

Currently, the only tablets that can even think about running Microsoft Office are Windows tablets and until Windows 8 launches, the less said about those the better.

Bringing the world’s favorite suite of productivity apps to iOS would also coincide with a set of updated apps built for Mac OS X Lion as well, according to the report. The Windows version of Office is also due a refresh.

The apps would retail for around $10 each according to The Daily’s sources, which would bring them in line with similar Office-like apps on the App Store which come from Apple themselves in the form of the iWork suite. Microsoft already has apps on Apple’s online software store, so getting the apps into the hands of the public wouldn’t be a difficult job.

According to The Daily’s report; Microsoft’s Office is the company’s second highest generator of revenue behind only Windows, making it patently obvious why bringing the collection of applications to the iOS platforms would make a great deal of sense.

If Microsoft does bring Office to iOS then it will once again open the debate whether the iPad is a viable machine for creating content on. With its on-screen touch-based keyboard; the iPad has proven to be an adequate machine for editing files on the fly, but we’re not sure we would want to write a whole article on one unless absolutely pushed to do so. With that in mind, we probably wouldn’t get much use out of Microsoft Office, either.

Apple’s own iWork suite, consisting of Pages, Numbers and Keynote have sold reasonably well in the App Store, with iPhone versions of the iPad apps being released recently.

While bringing Office to iOS does make a modicum of sense, we are not going to hold out much hope for an Android version any time soon, though. With the iPad owning so much of the tablet market, why would Microsoft release a version of Office for the also-rans?

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Cyber Monday 2011 MSFT Deals: Xbox 360, Kinect, Windows Phones, PCs, & More Up For Sale

Awais Imran — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:57:25 +0000

While Black Friday is done and dusted, it is time for Cyber Monday. For those unaware of the term, Cyber Monday is a term used for the Monday that follows Black Friday. It is a one-day online shopping event where companies lower prices (and hence, profits) in order to gain more revenue. Generally speaking, Cyber Monday deals aren’t as good as Black Friday’s, but they are still something every consumer electronics/gadgets enthusiast should look into. Since we’re a technology blog, we’ll be covering different Cyber Monday deals throughout the day. In this post, we’ve listed Cyber Monday deals on Microsoft products which you can check out after the break!

Windows Phones

We’ll start off with deals on Windows Phones. Microsoft Stores are selling the following three smartphones for free with a contract from respective wireless carriers.

HTC Radar 4G (T-Mobile)
HTC Trophy (Verizon Wireless)
HTC Arrive (Sprint)

Accessories

All accessories from Microsoft Store are 25% off when you enter SAVE25 at checkout, some these include the Touch Mouse, Wireless Comfort Desktop 500, LaCie iamaKey USB Flash Drives and more which you can check out here.

Laptops and Office

Office Home and Student 2010 is available for $30 off the original price for $119.99. You may want to get this along with the Samsung RC512 Core i5 laptop ($499, normally $799), Lenovo IdeaPad U260 ($599, normally $799) or ASUS U36JC ($699, normally $999) which will strike a further $40 off Office Home and Student 2010. Those of you who are on a Mac can get Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 for $79.99 (normally, $119.99) for one Mac or $129.99 (normally $149.99).

Gaming

Next up, we have the Xbox 360 and Kinect:

Xbox 360 4GB with Kinect ($199, normally $299)
Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Holiday Bundle ($299, normally $399)
Kinect Sensor ($99, normally $129)

You may want to get a discounted 3-month Xbox Live Gold Membership card ($12.99, originally $24.99)

Some of the most critically acclaimed games are also on sale. Games like Gears of War 3, Forza Motorsport 4, Kinect Sports (and more) are available on $20 discounts which you can check out here.

Four Live Arcade titles are on sale. Their names, on-discount Microsoft Points and savings have been listed below:

Mortal Kombat Arcade Collection (400, 50%)
Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale (600, 50%)
Beyond Good & Evil HD (240, 70%)
Risk Factions (200, 75%)

These deals will last for today i.e. Monday, November 28th only, so be quick to make your decision!

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Microsoft Black Friday Deals: Discounts On Xbox 360, Windows PCs, Kinect, Free Windows Phones & More

Oliver Haslam — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:53:46 +0000

UPDATE: Microsoft’s Black Friday deals are now up!

We’re only a few short hours away before the entire United States is gripped by the excitement and downright fear of Black Friday.

The day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday is the day when any major retailer and e-tailer worth its salt sets out to put itself out of business by offering huge discounts on its products.

What that actually usually amounts to is a few percent off some of the store’s slowest-selling lines, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Microsoft’s increased presence on the high street as well as its online store mean that it is very much set for Black Friday’s madness, and if the company’s official Facebook page is anything to go by, some of the deals aren’t half bad! And they are available for consumption, now!

Started at 12:00AM on Friday 25th of November, Microsoft’s Black Friday sale covers its brick and mortar outlets as well as its online store, though some of the offers are restricted as to where they are available, so we suggest you check before buying.

Perhaps the most eye-catching offer is Microsoft’s ‘buy more, save more’ promotion, with shoppers potentially saving up to 25% on a new computer.

Buy more, save more:
•Save 15% when you spend $100 or more.
•Save 20% when you spend $500 or more.
•Save 25% when you spend $1,000 or more.

Gaming fans can pick up an Xbox Kinect accessory for $99.99, down from the usual $149.99. The package also includes Fruit Ninja, Gunstringer and Kinect Adventures.

There are plenty of games on offer, too, with some of our picks listed here. Be sure to check Microsoft’s Facebook page for the full list.

Batman: Arkham City: was $59.99, now $28.00

Battlefield 3: was $59.99, now $28.00

FIFA 12: was $59.95, now $28.00

Forza 4: was $59.99, now $28.00

GOW 3: was $59.99, now $28.00

Kinect Sports and Kinect Sports Season 2: was $49.99, now $15.00

Madden 2012: was $59.95, now $28.00

NBA 2k12: was $59.99, now $28.00

Rabbids: Alive and Kicking: was $49.99, now $24.99

Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster: was $49.99, now $24.99

Kinect Disneyland: was $49.99, now $15.00

Halo CE Anniversary: was $ 39.99, now $15.00

Microsoft’s Windows Phone are getting some love too, with handset deals mentioned but not elaborated upon, free handsets with two-year contracts will be available, but the Microsoft’s Facebook page does not confirm that but their website does (link at the bottom).

Some of the offers listed appear to be long-running ones, with some not ending until after the new year. We can’t stress enough how important it is to check the terms on these things due to strange ending times, with some offers ending at 6AM on Christmas day.

That said, there are some deals to be had, so head on over to your (probably not very) local Microsoft Store and fill your boots! Or simply head over to this link and start munching on the aforementioned deals and more.

This Is What Microsoft Thinks The Future Of Smartphones & Computers Will Look Like [VIDEO]

Oliver Haslam — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:38:36 +0000

If there’s one thing we all seem to enjoy doing, it’s looking into the future and making weird and wonderful predictions about what the future will be like, and how our world will be changed dramatically by the technology around us.

The problem is, we’re usually very wide of the mark. Just look at some of the science fiction books and movies from twenty years ago, and see what the people of the time thought 2011 would be like.

If anything, the future has turned out to be a complete let down. Where are our flying cars, and where are our meals that come in pellet form? When predicting the future, we’re not quite good at it, we suck, to put it in simple words.

Which is why it’s particularly intriguing to see a rather fancy-looking video come out of Microsoft, showing just what the boys and girls in Redmond think our digital future will look like. Surely this has been put together by their Windows team, or perhaps their Windows Phone team, you presume. Well, you’d presume wrong because the team behind this video are the creative visionaries (does sarcasm come across well in text?) in, wait for it, the Office team!

Are you sill there?

Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go.

The video opens with a young lady arriving at an airport, and super-futuristic spectacles begin to translate audio into English for her, as if by magic.

From here on in we’re treated to both the sublime and the ridiculousness, both in equal measures.

We have car windows doubling up as information screens, we have smartphones that resemble nothing we’ve ever seen before, and we have internet connected devices telling a hotel worker when his next guest will arrive. That actually seems quite cool, until you realize the privacy activists out there would have a field day with such technology.

The whole video shows what Microsoft thinks will be a whole new level of connectivity, with all our personal devices talking to each other, and linking seamlessly, or more importantly, wirelessly, with each other.

The six minute video is certainly worth your time to watch, assuming you can stand the music, but we wouldn’t be expecting anything shown to be appearing in your local Best Buy any time soon.

And where are my flying cars!?

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Download Office 2010 Service Pack 1

Goncalo Ribeiro — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:37:21 +0000

Microsoft has just released the first Service Pack for Office 2010, the newest version of the most popular productivity suite in the world. As with other service packs, Office 2010 SP1 doesn’t include significant new features but it does improve all of the built-in applications, such as Word, Excel and Outlook.

According to an article on Microsoft’s Knowledge Base, this service pack includes "improvements in stability, performance, and in security". It also includes all previously released updates. Among the many improvements, the most prominent include a new Open from web option on OneNote’s File Menu, allowing documents to be opened directly from SkyDrive; a new feature for community content integration in Access; Office 365 support in Outlook; and several performance enhancements in Excel.

Back in November of last year, Microsoft made an early version of Service Pack 1 available to selected testers, although no public beta program ever took place. Similarly to the version released today, the private build included small changes in how the software operated but didn’t significantly change the product’s feature set.

Service Packs are a common practice in the lifecycle of Microsoft products, especially the most prominent ones, such as Windows, Office and Visual Studio. Service Packs help users cut deployment and update time by bundling several updates, that would otherwise have to be installed individually, into a single package. In addition, Service Packs are often used to address complaints from customers by including slight tweaks to certain features.

Despite the long release log, Service Pack 1, similarly to most recent Service Packs Microsoft has released, doesn’t include any drastic feature or user interface changes. Most users likely won’t notice that the update is there at all.

In addition, Office’s version number as bumped to 14.0.4023.1000, for what it’s worth.

Microsoft released the final version of Office 2010 on June 15th 2010, after years of development. One year later, the company has reported that the product has been the fastest-selling version of Office yet, with 50 million people already using the suite.

You can get Service Pack 1 from Microsoft Update, as well as Microsoft’s download center. For your convenience, we’re posting the links right here:

If you’re using the 64-bit version of Office 2010, click here.
32-bit users should get it from here.

There’s no excuse not to get this. Who wouldn’t want to have a better product at absolutely no cost?

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Leaked Photos Suggest Microsoft Office 15 Also Offers Metro Based UI

Hamad Dar — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:36:56 +0000

If you have been reading the Windows 8 coverage at all, you probably already know about the Metro UI of the Windows 8, flattened and tiled look, which has its basis in the Windows Phone 7.

Leaked screenshots from the Office 15 highlights the fact that the folks at Redmond are not only adding the Metro UI to the new version of the Windows but to the upcoming version of Office too.

More leaked screenshots (courtesy of HotFix) revealed that Outlook has been largely inspired by the WP7 flattened look and includes various Metro UI elements.

The new Outlook’s interface is much cleaner, simpler and yet seems to offer what users expect from it. The main window structure seems to be inherited from the older versions but the flattened looks and clutter-less environment adds the beauty of simplicity. One thing that Microsoft has lacked since forever is eye-candy and with the Metro UI look, it appears that Microsoft is catching up.

Sources revealed that the upcoming Office has reached the Milestone 2 phase of development. For now, little is known about the features that Office 15 may offer to its users but the new Outlook is expected to include "world class messaging, contacts, calendaring and social collaboration for both enterprise and cloud" suggested a job listing.

(via WinRumors)

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Microsoft Releases OneNote App for iPhone

Taimur Asad — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:14:09 +0000

Realizing the importance of the increasing market share which the iPhone platform currently posses, Microsoft today has released OneNote app for iPhone and iPod touch. This is the fourth app which has come out of Microsoft for the iPhone/iOS platform, the other three being Bing for iPhone, Seadragon Mobile, and Microsoft Tag.

Microsoft OneNote Mobile is the easy-to-use, powerful note-taking application for all of your ideas, brought to you by Microsoft Office. OneNote Mobile lets you create and view notes and lists whenever you need them. Sync your notes with free Windows Live online storage and access them from virtually anywhere using your phone, PC, or almost any web browser.

With OneNote Mobile, you can:
▪ Create flexible notes that can include text, pictures, bullets, and checkboxes
▪ Check To Do items off on the go
▪ Save time with quick access to your most recent notes
▪ Work with confidence—OneNote Mobile automatically syncs your notes with Windows Live in the background
▪ Organize your notes into sections or create new notebooks using OneNote 2010 or OneNote Web App and access them from your iPhone

Requirements:
▪ iPhone or iPod touch must have iOS 4.2 or higher
▪ A free Windows Live ID is required to use OneNote Mobile —use an existing one or let OneNote Mobile help you sign up
▪ Web functionality uses the free OneNote Web App available on Windows Live, which requires a supported web browser
▪ OneNote Mobile opens notebooks created in Microsoft OneNote 2010 or the OneNote Web App
▪ Customizing section colors requires Microsoft OneNote 2010

Access your notes online at http://office.live.com.

Available for free for limited time only, OneNote for iPhone can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store link given below.

Download OneNote for iPhone

Check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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Redmond Pie » Office

Microsoft Office 15 Technical Preview Now Available For Select Group Of People

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